Baseball: Xander Bogaerts may not leave Red Sox short

The Red Sox have had lots of shortstops of the future through the years, recent ones included, but not many actually had futures in Boston.

Jose Iglesias was one. So was Jed Lowrie, and both of them had short shelf lives with the Sox. The franchise's last shortstop of the future who stuck around was Nomar Garciaparra, who held down the job from 1997 to 2003 with a year off in 2001 while recovering from surgery.

Boston seems to think more of its latest shortstop of the future, Xander Bogaerts, than it did of Iglesias or Lowrie. The Sox would like to think of him as possibly another Garciaparra with maybe a little longer career.

On Saturday, Bogaerts got his first day off of 2014. It was just a breather, manager John Farrell said, what with the Sox having played a lot of long, cold games and doing some traveling. It also gave Boston one more left-handed bat in the lineup as it faced a righty.

So far, Bogaerts has hit pretty well, run the bases poorly and has not been all that good at shortstop. While his defensive statistics aren't terrible, too many opposition ground balls are winding up as infield hits, or in left field, and when he makes a mistake, it is a costly one.

He looked better at third base last year. Maybe this season's inconsistencies are a function of age. Bogaerts is 21, a relatively young rookie, and shortstop is an unforgiving position. Garciaparra was 23 when he came to the majors to stay. One of the Sox' all-time best shortstops, Rick Burleson, was 23 when he broke in and committed 18 errors in a half-season in 1974.

Bogaerts may wind up being one of those shortstops who is just OK defensively but more than compensates for that with his offensive production. Everybody loves to watch a Gold Glove shortstop, but having one is not a requirement for winning, and vice versa.

The best defensive shortstop Boston has had in recent years is Alex Gonzalez — yes, he was better than Stephen Drew -— and the Sox did not win anything with him. It did, though, win a World Series with Julio Lugo in 2007.

The Red Sox think Bogaerts will be better than any of them and will give him a long time to prove it.

Baseball Jeopardy

Answers.

1. He holds the record for most major league games played by a player born in Italy.

2. He started games at five positions for the Red Sox in 2013, more than anybody else.

3. The current major league manager who has managed the most teams in his career.

Questions below.

Neither on $10 bill

Baseball may be facing something like the George H.W. Bush and George H. Bush identity thing down the road — a long way down the road. Reds speedster Billy Hamilton figures to steal a lot of bases in his career, maybe as many as Billy Hamilton did during his career in the 1890s. That Billy Hamilton, who lived in Clinton, had 914 steals in 1,594 games and led his league five times. The modern Hamilton has 18 in 70 games to date. … It is probably a good thing that the Red Sox don't travel to U.S. Cellular Field all that often, since some of their players have had inconceivably bad games there. Last Tuesday it was Bogaerts with an 0 for 4, including 3 strikeouts, 2 runners stranded in scoring position and a game-ending error. The next night, A.J. Pierzynski was 0 for 6 at the plate, 0 for 2 throwing out base stealers and stranded five teammates in scoring position. The all-time worst there, though, was Trot Nixon's 0 for 9 in extra innings on July 9, 2006. … Daisuke Matsuzaka is back in the majors as a middle reliever with the Mets. He had two good starts with their Las Vegas affiliate in Triple A. Since 2008, when he was 18-3 with a 2.90 ERA, Matsuzaka has pitched for eight teams in six leagues in the majors and minors and has a record of 28-39. … Reliving the Red Sox' successive triumphs in the 2004 postseason never seems to get old for their fans, and a new book is out doing just that — reliving 2004. It is named "Don't Let Us Win Tonight" by Allan Wood and Bill Nowlin, perhaps the best of the many Red Sox historians through the years. It is an oral history of the '04 playoffs and published by Triumph Books.

Watch for Cecchini

In the minors, third base prospect Garin Cecchini is batting .315 with Pawtucket, and if Will Middlebrooks doesn't figure it out soon, Cecchini will pass him on the depth chart. Rubby De la Rosa, who came over from Los Angeles in the Gonzo trade, is 1-0 with 1.08 ERA for the PawSox. He has three walks and 14 strikeouts in 16 innings. Allen Webster, for all his potential, is 1-1 and has walked 12, striking out 11, in 20 innings.

At Double-A Portland, the second base-shortstop combination of Mookie Betts and Deven Marrero has impressed. Betts, the second baseman, is batting .417 after hitting .341 in a half-season in the Carolina League in 2013. Marrero, a first-round pick in the 2012 draft, is hitting .342 and has not been charged with an error.

Catching up with ...

Mauro Gomez, part of the 2012 disaster, is playing for the Hanshin Tigers in the Japan Central League; Danny Heep remains as the longtime coach at the University of Incarnate Word in San Antonio; Ron Mahay, the outfielder turned lefty reliever, is a pro scout for the Dodgers.

Utility man Yamaico Navarro is in Korea playing for the Samsung Lions; popular infielder Jody Reed is the Yankees' minor league infield coordinator; the Cubs hired Darnell McDonald as an assistant in the baseball operations side of things after giving him one last look as a player in spring training.

Where are the others?

The Red Sox got the oldest player, Jake Peavy, of the seven involved in their three-way deal with the Tigers and White Sox last July 30. Peavy, however, is the only one wearing a big-league uniform at the moment. Iglesias is out for Detroit indefinitely with leg issues, and Chicago outfielder Avisail Garcia is done for the year after shoulder surgery. Reliever Brayan Villareal is in Pawtucket, and the three prospects Boston sent to the White Sox are all in the low minors. … Since Theo Epstein went to the Cubs, their record is 131-210. … Jon Lester seems to finally be cured of stomping around after he doesn't get close calls on balls-and-strikes, so David Ortiz has taken over as the Red Sox' top whiner. Farrell has to be a little careful with that stuff, though, even if replay hasn't been kind to the Red Sox so far. That's just not what you want your manager to do, right or wrong. Sets a bad example.

Few still standing

Although the NFL 49ers have left Candlestick Park, it is still standing in San Francisco and will be for another year or so. The Metrodome in Minneapolis disappeared during the winter, leaving the list of former major league baseball stadiums that have been vacated by their team, but are still intact looking like this:

Candlestick Park; Jack Murphy Stadium (now Qualcomm) in San Diego; Olympic Stadium in Montreal; the Astrodome in Houston, which has been declared a historic landmark; RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.; Joe Robbie Stadium (now SunLife) in Miami; and the Los Angeles Coliseum, where the Dodgers played when they first moved west from Brooklyn.

Jeopardy Questions

1. Who is Reno Bertoia? Bertoia, a first baseman, played from 1953 to 1962. He was born in Italy but grew up in Ontario, Canada.

2. Who is Daniel Nava? Nava started at all three outfield positions, first base and DH for Boston last season.

3. Who is Buck Showalter? The Orioles manager has had the same job with the Yankees, Rangers and Diamondbacks.

Contact Bill Ballouat wballou@telegram.com.

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